Has anyone had a bad experience with anesthesia not working? patient can feel everything?

Oral surgery nightmare. Propoval (sp) did not put my daughter under enough that she could not feel the DR cutting her gums to remove her wisdom teeth. She is a college student so I was not in there. They finally got me when she got up out of the chair, hour and half after they started, unassisted and very agitated. They did not remove any teeth.. put some suture in where they had started but that is all. She is still in a lot of pain but they did not perscribe anything. They did refund my money but are not willing to be involved further. I am very concerned for my daughter. Her face is very swollen and she has bruises all over her arms where they kept trying to put the IV back in. (she tore the IV out 4 times in an effort to get up) . Does this drug interract poorly with pain meds? I also do not know what questions to ask the next oral surgeon. If anyone has any info on propovol (sp) please respond.

Has anyone had a bad experience with anesthesia not working? patient can feel everything?
If a patient is _extremely_ agitated, they might require a higher dose than normally required for adequate anesthesia. If the surgeon increased to a higher dose than usual, he may not have felt it would be medically safe to use more.





I was not there, so I can't really comment on the appropriateness of the treatment or dosing. I do know that if she was removing the iv from her arm, it would have bene impossible to give her more of the medication.





As far as whether it was appropriate or not to make an incision to remove a wisdom tooth (without regard for the moment about her anesthesia), it makes no sense to say that it should not be necessary to make an incision. 9 times out of 10, it IS necessary. If the tooth was fully exposed, chances are it would not need to be removed. I'm just adding this because another responder said otherwise and I do not want you to question the need for an incision. I am sure that your daughter seemed to be sufficiently induced ("under") to proceed, but she reacted to the pain of the incision and then the surgeon realized that she wasn't.





She might make out better being admitted to a hospital where an anesthesiologist would handle the anesthesia and the surgeon would handle the surgery.





I am NOT speaking about your daughter now, but I will tell you a brief story about one of my extremely anxious patients. I sent her to the oral surgeon for a very simple extraction that I would normally do in my own office, because she was a candidate for anesthesia. She was SO disruptive and uncooperative that they were not even able to start an iv with her "under" some nitrous oxide. They ended up dismissing her and saying, "I'm sorry," to the patient but then they called me and told me about her behavior and said that she was on a very, very short list of patients who were so bad that they are not allowed to come back to their office ever again. Like I said, I'm not talking about your daughter, but extreme anxiety can make people do strange things and become very resistant to sedation or anesthesia.
Reply:I'd say it's up to your daughter to decide. Local ansesthesia can make you PROFOUNDLY numb, but extreme anxiety will accelerate your metabolism so much that this goes away quickly. Click on my icon if you want to ask more questions. Report It

Reply:I am limited to 300 characters here and we can't engage in a dialogue.





Thanks. Report It

Reply:WOW... that's a nightmare





They should have stopped when that occurred...





Regarding the conflict between pain meds and IV, I would say no. I've had surgeries in which I was heavily sedated, after which they gave me Advil and Ibuprofen so numb the pain when it comes up again.





I'm so sorry...





If you want to try a safer route, try going to a school of dentistry. The students performing the extraction will have a professor right there, so there will be no problem. I go to the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, and I've never had a problem.





And why did they cut her gums to remove her wisdom teeth? Unless she was having an implant or bone grafting, the gum should have remained intact. I had some teeth pulled, and I never needed sedation, no matter how much I complained that it would hurt.





I can't believe such doctors exist. Ask for their education background and their certifications. Ask for the years of practice, and recommendation letters. Look the doctor on the Internet, see if you can dig up any complaints. Check up on his references. Ask why they are doing a procedure, and how it is going to work. Before every procedure, I am explained the current situation, and am told what will happen, why, and how it will look afterwards.





Again, I'm so sorry...
Reply:OMG! Thanks a lot. I get mine taken out next week!
Reply:Not with that medicine per se...but when I had my four wisdom teeth removed, one was formed and starting to come out of my gum, one was formed and ready to go through the gum, one was almost fully formed but still inside my gum, and one was just beginning to form and pretty much still a lot of nerve.





Well - they decided to take out all four at the same time. They gave me Novocaine (a local anesthetic) in addition to nitrous to put me under. Well, I dozed right off listening to my CD player, didn't feel a damn thing...





That is, until I woke up out a deep sleep and they had just started drilling the one that was primarily nerve and I sat up, threw up all over everyone from the pain, started screaming bloody murder, crying and making a big scene cuz I had felt them drilling in and I could hear the drill and everything.





They eventually gave me more anesthetic/anesthesia and I managed to make it through...but I could still feel it a little and the sound of the drill wasn't very comforting.





I totally empathize with your daughter....



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